


our bodies possessed by light

by andawaywego



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: A little angst, Dani is moody, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Jamie and Dani say some swears, Smut, i wrote actual smut and posted it, she has a reason to be tho, spoilers through the finale, that’s growth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26975155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andawaywego/pseuds/andawaywego
Summary: “It’s been only a few days, yes, but there is something of a promise in Jamie’s eyes already.Something like: ‘I’m with you. I’m with you. It’s you. It’s us.’”[or: Dani stops running long enough to get the girl.]
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 82
Kudos: 1068





	our bodies possessed by light

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote another thing. i officially shake off my promise to not write more. i can’t deny these two.
> 
> that ending was sad. have some feelings and some fucking to dry your tears.
> 
> apologies for mistakes. i wrote this with my cat lying on one of my hands. 
> 
> spoilers ahoy.

It starts so quietly:

The brush of a shoulder against her own and then standing there, inches apart, and Dani jerks forward. It’s a quick movement and it cuts her breath away twice: once when her palm finally closes around Jamie’s hand and secondly when Jamie’s breath stutters.

In the short time they’ve known one another—been performing a ballet of quick, careful movements; a dance around the house, Jamie’s grand jeté into the kitchen, thrown into view with the force of something quite inevitable while Dani pirouettes around a corner, out of sight.

There have been moments. A lingering stare or two. The way the air halts just so when their gaze meets. The way Jamie’s eyes linger on her face for a beat too long before finally, blessedly looking away.

But this is something else.

This is close. Suffocatingly. And Dani loses her breath all over again at the realization.

Jamie’s hand is cool and soft, curling and gripping Dani’s pink-chilled fingers with her own. She can feel Jamie’s thudding heartbeat under the pad of her thumb, bumping against the vein, and the intimacy in that—the _you’re real you’re real you’re really really real_ —is dizzying.

It should feel strange, perhaps, to be so close to a woman she’s only known for a few days. A woman she is acquaintances with, yes, but not friends. Not friends _like this_. And yet, it doesn’t. Somehow, it feels like the most natural thing in the world for their faces to be so close, their breath mingling, Jamie’s green eyes caught in surprise at the situation, the proximity, or both.

Owen’s mother is dead. There is something wrong with Miles. Something breathes down the back of Dani’s neck each time she takes a step inside that house, and Eddie is still trapped in her reflection. 

Dani knows that she shouldn’t be doing this. That she should be stepping back and putting distance between them because this is her _job_ and her _life_ and her failsafe and she can’t jeopardize something else important simply because she cannot ignore the way she feels. 

But Jamie is there and her breath keeps hitching, her grip tightening like she’s fighting the urge to pull Dani in, to keep bring her close, close, closer. Like she wants to protect her and this is the first time since that terrible night in the hospital that Dani has actually felt _safe_.

Things as they are, surrounded by uncertainty as they may be, she feels so secure with Jamie’s hand in hers. The simplest thing.

It’s on the tip of her tongue to thank Jamie for some reason. For staying maybe or for sharing this moment. For maybe, possibly feeling this too.

When she opens her mouth to do it, Jamie’s eyes fall to her lips and she blinks, her cheeks blushing red as she breathes through her mouth like she _wants_. Like Dani isn’t the only one who’s suddenly starved. She pulls away eventually because this moment, like all moments, has to end.

She’s breathing hard through her mouth, still, and they stare at one another a moment longer, both of them dazed by this new _something_ they’ve stumbled upon, hadn’t expected.

“Who the hell knew?” she asks, already opening the door to her car and getting in.

Dani is just about to say something else, something stuttering and uncertain that she would likely end up regretting, but then the engine is sputtering and Jamie is already heading up the gravel road, getting further and further away.

Her tail lights disappear around the bend and Dani waits a moment before turning, before going back inside. Her legs feel like they’re made of something weak and shaky, but she pushes on because she has to. 

Because that’s what you do in this world. Find a way forward. 

The next day, it’s something else. It’s a grin and a smile and Jamie’s fingertips brushing down the skin of her spine and then—

Her reflection. Eddie.

But Jamie is there. She is kind and careful and seems to understand how to combine just the right words to soothe whatever it is in Dani that is constantly twisting. 

It’s been only a few days, yes, but there is something of a promise in Jamie’s eyes already.

Something like: _I’m with you. I’m with you. It’s you. It’s us._

It makes Dani’s chest tight, her ears hot, her tendons and muscles scream with the need to move, to touch Jamie, to bring her in and never let her go.

She wants to, she _wants_ , but she—

.

It doesn’t end there:

 _Of course_ it doesn’t. Can’t.

The crackle of the light. The pop of the fire. Dani walks into the darkness and Jamie follows.

“Think I’m crazy?” Dani asks, gutted and broken and coming apart at the seams. 

The air is still around them. Jamie’s arm is around her back, the pressure of it steady and present. 

The words, the weight of the whole thing, feels like it’s cracking into her ribcage—just a puncture and pinch and her mouth filling with blood. It lingers around them like smoke, makes her vision cloud, tears burning in her eyes and allowing her to see things so clearly, so suddenly.

The weight of it vibrates in the air, presses against the space between them.

All of it.

The entire, awful, heartbreaking thing.

Eddie is dead.

Eddie is _dead._

But he isn’t gone.

“I think you’re incredibly sane, considering,” Jamie says, fixing Dani with her most determined expression. “Look, I know what it feels like...to feel like you can’t find your—”

Dani kisses her. Can’t help it. Cups her jaw and kisses her because she has to, because she can’t _not_ anymore. 

It only lasts a moment, and then Jamie pulls away, curls her fingers into Dani’s hair and her coat. Dani’s own hands clutch Jamie tight, gripping the fabric of her thick coat right at the shoulders.

“Are you sure?” Jamie asks, holding Dani’s gaze with a watery smile.

Silence descends in the space between them, alive and twisting in the same way it had been just that morning, in Dani’s bedroom. So close together. Everything they are to one another and everything they might still be has been reshaping for days.

Dani tears her eyes away and looks. Left and right and behind. But they’re alone. Something in her chest loosens.

What she wants to say is this: _it’s you, it’s us._

What she says is: “Yes.”

And Jamie laughs breathlessly, pulls her in and kisses her again, their teeth clacking together because neither of them can stop grinning. 

It is. It’s them. Both of them, Jamie’s tongue slipping shyly against Dani’s lips, her palms cupping the sides of Dani’s face to bring her closer. Dani kisses her and kisses her and _kisses her_ because this thing—whatever it is—is too strong to fight anymore. It lives in the way Jamie laughs into Dani’s mouth; the way she presses and pulls so tight; how Dani is as close as she can possibly manage and it just isn’t near enough somehow; how she wants to give into this, into everything that Jamie can possibly offer her.

She wants to, she _wants_ , but she—

.

It comes to a startled halt:

Jamie says, “It’s all good,” like that might be the end of it but Dani—

It’s not. It isn’t. 

Dani is not a fighter. Not really. She’s run before. She knows how it works, but this…

She thinks she might never be able to run anywhere far enough.

This thing with Jamie would find her all the way in Antarctica. 

Eddie’s glasses burn easily enough. Dani watches the rubber nose pieces, the rubber ear guards sizzle and melt. It’s a start.

A good one. And a start is what she should want.

She wants, she _wants_ , but she—

.

When she sleeps, she dreams:

_You sure? Is he here now? Poppins, are you sure?_

It’s Jamie’s voice that finds her, drifting along the calm waters of the lake as Dani stares up at the sky. It floats loftily like clouds, like vapor, like mist. Like a church bell from a mile away or the rustle of the summer breeze through the green grass—how it brushed through Eddie’s hair when they were young, his eyes lit up with the sun, lips upturned in a laugh.

The gentle ripple and rise of the water below her palms, the soft cool wrap of it around her body, the kiss of the reeds on her forehead. A quiet, careful, _It’s my fault, it’s my fault_ , as Jamie pulled away.

It cuts through the soft, lingering terror just at the edges of this false tranquility. The fevered horror of something waiting for her in the lake below. Something brushes up against the skin of her calf—like a leaf or a blade of grass or a hand; a loose grip trying to pull, trying to _tug_ her below—

She’s in the green house again, surging upright and reaching out until Jamie is there too, her arms wrapping around her and Dani feels—the way you feel in dreams—the rush of relief at her touch.

Jamie is here. She’s _real_. She’s really real.

 _Oh, Poppins_ , Jamie says, _what are you so scared of?_

Dani laughs. She aches, feels bruised. Jamie’s green eyes are warmed with unshed tears, her lips pretty and pink from kissing, and Dani smooths an errant, brown curl out of her face.

_What are you so—_

Dani kisses her again. Same as before. A terrible moment of stillness before Jamie responds, pushing forward, and kisses her back. Soft at first, sweet, and nothing like Dani imagined. It’s perfect, it’s happening, and she’s not running.

But Jamie isn’t kissing her. Jamie is standing in the lake, water up to her knees. Jamie is standing there and saying, Poppins, Poppins, it’s you it’s me and there’s something in the water.

A figure. Tall. Shadowed. Eyes like fire. Eyes like _you’ve done enough._ A pale hand reaching out for Jamie’s shoulder, trying to pull her, tug her under and Dani wants to save her.

She wants to, she _wants_ , but she—

.

It’s not over, it’s not, it’s Jamie, it’s them:

Dani wakes up early the day Jamie comes back after the funeral and ruins a pot of coffee before seven o’clock. Meets Jamie in the garden. 

Says, “I didn’t like the way we left it.”

Says, “There’s a pub in Bly, isn’t there?”

Says, “And you and me…”

Wants to say more, wants to put a finger on why this is so important, why it feels like, no matter where she goes, she’ll never be able to get away from this.

Wants to tell Jamie why she’s scared, what it is that she’s running from.

She wants, but—

Flora.

There’s Flora. Something wrong with Flora.

.

It happens like this:

_It’s where all its beauty lies, you know. In the mortality of the thing._

Jamie’s voice rings echoes through the fog of Dani’s mind. What she’s saying is

( _can it be you? can it be me? can it be us?_ )

raw and broken and Dani thinks that if she were to be split down the middle, those words would be etched into the muscle of her beating, thumping heart.

The damp air is thick with something other than rain, something that is going unspoken still and they both know exactly what it is, but standing in the dark of the forest—water dripping down onto both of their heads and faces and clothes—after knowing one another for so short a time isn’t the right place to say it.

Maybe that’s why Dani’s tongue feels thick in her mouth, her throat dry and cracked from the effort of holding back.

Dani thinks of that kiss in the green house, the way Jamie’s lips felt against her own, her hands clutching into the fabric of Dani’s coat, breath against her chin when she pulled away.

 _It’s all good,_ she’d said, but it wasn’t. It hasn’t been. Not since then.

Jamie is easy enough to turn into her arms, easy enough to hold on to, like her arms were made for Dani’s hands to pull tight. Like her eyes were meant to flicker down to Dani’s lips in the moment before it happens.

Before Dani breaks. Before she kisses Jamie with as much of herself as she has left to give.

Jamie kisses back, gasps a little when Dani nibbles at her lower lip. When she pulls back, her expression is light and gentle. Like she’s making sure. Waiting, still, for Dani to pull away.

But Dani doesn’t. Can’t anymore. Even if she wanted to. And she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t.

She wants—

.

It takes so long to get back to the house:

Not for lack of an eagerness to be inside, in the warmth, to be somewhere with a bed and a door that locks, but because Dani can’t go more than three feet without pulling Jamie to her again.

 _This_ , she thinks. _This_ is what she’d been missing before. 

She isn’t broken. She was just waiting for someone who could make her feel the way Jamie can with nothing more than a nod in her direction.

“You’re a lovely distraction,” Jamie says as Dani kisses her way down her throat. “Come on. I want you proper. In a bed. Where I can take my time.”

Dani’s eyes flutter at her words. She lets herself be guided away and turned. Pulled towards the house by the warmth of Jamie’s hand around her own.

They reach the house, but then it’s Jamie who breaks, who catches eyes with Dani as she reaches for the door and surges forward, kissing her goofily as her eagerness nearly knocks her off balance. 

“I thought we were going to bed,” Dani asks, her voice so breathy and distant that she hardly even recognizes herself. 

Jamie’s curls tickle her chin as an open-mouthed kiss is placed on the hinge of her jaw. Slim fingers ruck up her sweater, pulling it out from where it’s tucked in and looping through her belt loops. A harsh tug closer as Jamie returns to her lips.

“We are,” Jamie whispers. 

“This seems more like a wall to me.”

Jamie hums. Kisses her throat. “So it is.” She pulls back and smiles, just for a moment, before opening the door and pulling her inside.

They stumble up the stairs, giggling as they go because neither of them is able to pull away for too long. Dani’s knees tremble as they make their way down the hallway, and she worries for a moment that she might tumble to the unforgiving floor. 

Wonders if Jamie would catch her.

Imagines it. Shivers again. Bites her lip.

There’s a breath of hesitation when she grips the doorknob to her room—one second where she worries that she’s about to ruin the first good thing to come into her life in so long. But then Jamie’s hands curl around her hips, squeezing them gently and pressing against her back and Dani marvels at having ever been scared of this.

How woefully diffident it was of her to think she had anything to fear. To push it off. As if there were more important things.

She opens the door.

In her bedroom, they surge back together with the force of the tide, the snap of lightning, the rage of a fire. 

But not before—

Jamie shrugs off her coat and Dani watches her, does the same. She loves Jamie’s face—the shape of it. So familiar now that she could conjure the image of it perfectly in her mind if they’re ever apart.

She doesn’t ever want to be apart.

Her coat has barely hit the floor before she hears Jamie’s sharp inhale just before everything breaks.

When Jamie steps forward, Dani mimics the movement so she can reach her. So she can kiss her back. Her throat feels tight, her chest hot, and she tries to funnel every single ounce of this ferocious adoration and fierce longing into the stroke of her tongue against the roof of Jamie’s mouth.

One of Jamie’s hands is clenched in the cotton of Dani’s sweater, but the other trails up—fingertips dipping below the collar to brush over her collarbones, up her neck, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Finally they come to a halt, cupping the base of Dani’s skull as she is pulled further into Jamie’s body, her mouth.

Dani nibbles on Jamie’s bottom lip, shivering at the moan it gets her, and then clutches the fabric of Jamie’s worn t-shirt in her fist, right at the shoulder. She can feel the other woman’s skinny bones under her hand and she’s—not for the first time—amazed at this: Jamie’s wiry muscles and the outline of her vertebrae through her t-shirt when she’s washing up in the kitchen before lunch. The strength that lies behind them. How this body has kept her going in this dirty, vengeful world. Kept her safe. Kept her alive and moving forward—always forward—and thank god for that.

For every movement that led Jamie to this moment—kissing down Dani’s throat, whispering Dani’s name into her ear. Hand slipping under her sweater and up to rest against the bare skin of her ribs.

Dani arches further in and Jamie’s kisses turn hot and open-mouthed against her neck, panting against her clavicle.

There’s too much fabric between them, so Dani tugs at Jamie’s shirt where her hand is clenched, needing this to happen sooner. Jamie pulls back from the kiss with a blinding smile and heated gaze. She reaches down and untucks her shirt, pulling it upwards—revealing the flat planes of her stomach, pale and soft and dotted with the occasional scar, her breasts bare in the dim light of the room, making Dani’s breath catch.

The sight makes Dani still for a second, dry-mouthed, and Jamie barely has the shirt all the way off before she’s pressing back in for another kiss.

“Jesus, Poppins, give us a sec, yeah?” Jamie laughs into her mouth, flailing a little to toss the shirt to the ground and keep from falling over.

“Don’t want to,” Dani tells her, kissing her again.

Jamie cups her cheek and pulls back to look at her, eyes moving over Dani’s face as she takes in the sight of her, leaving Dani feeling incredibly stark and bare. “I know,” she says. “Me neither. But I’d rather not break my neck in the process.”

With a laugh, Dani buries her nose into Jamie’s shoulder, taking in the clean scent of soap and grass from her still-damp hair. “I’ll try my best to keep that from happening.”

“You’d better.”

Her hands slip down again, short nails scraping down Dani’s thighs through her pants. The heat of her fingertips makes Dani groan and push Jamie back towards where the bed is waiting for them. Jamie reaches out a hand to feel for the edge of the mattress, but winds up tripping on her own shirt and falling a little faster than intended, pulling Dani with her.

They fall roughly together on the bed, Dani half-straddling Jamie’s lap, and the whole thing is ridiculous enough that she can’t help but laugh.

It’s relieving, this moment. To be able to laugh with one another, even during this. It’s them—unsure and careful Dani and Jamie, the woman who is always sitting wrong, always teasing the children, filled to the brim with such a dry sense of humor that nothing serious can ever stick for too long. If they couldn’t laugh, even during _this_ , then Dani might have worried about something else.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” Jamie says, cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

Dani shakes her head and presses a kiss to each of her cheekbones and then, finally, her lips. “Don’t be.”

“S’long as you’re not hurt.”

Straightening herself on the other woman’s lap, Dani wraps her arms around Jamie’s neck and rests their foreheads together. “I think it’s cute.”

Jamie groans. “That’s...Cute. Really?” she says. “Not exactly the right tone for the moment.”

“What would be better?” Dani asks. As she says it—emboldened by something that feels beyond her—she rocks her hips down, partially to try and alleviate some of the heat that’s been building between her legs, partially to make Jamie squirm.

And squirm she does. She groans again, but a different kind this time, and her hands grip Dani’s hips through her trousers. A second later, she’s pulling Dani down and grinding herself upwards and Dani’s mouth falls open in a gasp, eyes shutting at the delicious friction it creates.

“That,” Jamie whispers. “That’s better.”

When Dani opens her eyes, Jamie’s pupils are dilated and she’s breathing heavily. Her fingers are digging into the meat of Dani’s hips in a way that hurts, but not in a way that she doesn’t like. She rocks herself down, so far from ashamed that she hardly recognizes herself.

There’s never been anything but restraint for her in moments like these. She’s been so afraid of being vulnerable, so afraid of the intimacy and the guilty, nauseated roil it caused in her stomach. But it’s different here, with Jamie—probably due to a lot of things that Dani has been keeping to herself for as long as she can remember. But, also, this:

Jamie has seen the darkest parts of her, heard the darkest secrets Dani has ever held, and she hasn’t run away. She’s accepted her, liked her anyway, wanted her anyway. And isn’t that something?

When she moans again—completely unbidden—at the way they’re rocking against one another, something cracks down the middle and then Jamie is gripping Dani tight with a surprising amount of force and twisting until she’s on her back, head against the pillows. Once she’s there, Jamie pulls at the bottom of her sweater and Dani sits up for a moment. Tugs it off. Tosses it to the floor and lies back down.

Jamie’s lips part as she looks her over, as she runs her fingers across Dani’s neck, her chest, and then the fabric of her bra.

The noise Dani hears herself make as Jamie does this is one she’d never even known herself capable of releasing. She’s certain that it’s one she has never made before in her entire life. Jamie bites her lip when she hears it and then leans down to dot kisses across Dani’s breastbone while Dani shrugs off her bra straps and pushes the whole thing down.

Seconds later, Jamie catches one of them in her mouth, fingers coming up to the other with a delicious slowness. And no one has ever touched her this way, which means there is no way for Dani to stop her next noise. Or the one after that.

Her hands snake into dark hair and it takes everything inside of her to keep from pressing her hips up into the slight weight of Jamie’s body.

Clever fingers reach around her back and pull at her bra clasp, releasing it after a few twists. It’s on the floor not a moment later. Dani reaches down and undoes the button of her trousers, and begins to push them down her hips to the best of her ability. The movement must throw Jamie off because she lifts some of her weight up to watch and then fixes Dani with a serious look.

“You...Are you sure that you—” she asks, sounding—for the first time in the last twenty-some minutes—like she’s second-guessing herself and Dani’s willingness. “Because we can…slow down if you’d like or-or...or wait, or—”

And it’s sweet. It’s so sweet. So kind of her to want another _yes_. Another _absolutely_. To want them both to be on the same page at all times. But there’s a fire licking in the low of Dani’s stomach and she’s certain that she’d have to bite through her own tongue to get herself to keep from pouncing on Jamie and finishing herself off on her leg if they don’t get a move on.

Slow and steady, Dani reaches down and cups one of Jamie’s breasts, pinching her nipple between her thumb and forefinger. She watches Jamie’s eyes roll closed with abject fascination and then moves her hand further down—slipping the button of Jamie’s jeans loose and pulling the zipper down—sliding past the hem of her pants and reaching inside to cup her through her underwear.

Jamie’s hips buck a little into the touch and Dani brackets them with her knees to keep her steady. “Oh...okay,” she gasps, biting her lip again. “I’ll take that as a ‘keep going.’”

“I want this, Jamie,” Dani says. She squeezes lightly and hopes like hell that she’s doing this right. She’s come into this whole thing understanding her own glaring inexperience and—

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Jamie gasps and it catches Dani off guard for a moment, hearing that desperation in her voice.

There’s a stab of something, neat and sharp, beneath her breastbone and it only alleviates once they’re kissing again.

Jamie leans down and wraps her lips around Dani’s nipple again and Dani shivers because she’s good at that. Jamie knows what she’s doing and how all of this works because she’s definitely _done this_ _before._ Probably with other women. Beautiful women, because Jamie is gorgeous and why should she ever settle for less. But that thought terrifies her because—

“I don’t...I don’t have any experience with this,” slips past her lips before she can stop herself. Her ears feel hot again and it only gets worse when Jamie lifts her head to look at her, concern etched tightly in her brow.

“Not even with—” she begins.

Dani cuts her off with a shake of her head, giving a little laugh. “Well, okay...I mean, I’ve done this before—” She flicks her tongue out to wet her suddenly-dry lips and thrills at the way Jamie’s eyes catch the movement. “But I haven’t—with a a...you know...another woman—”

“Oh,” Jamie sighs, and then she ducks her head to press a kiss to the dip of Dani’s collarbone. “Oh, right, yeah.” Another kiss, lower this time, moving back down to Dani’s breasts. “That’s—I mean, that’s okay, right? I’ve...That is, I’ve done this before with...you know...just with women and the lot, but it’s—” Her hips twitch, trying not to press down further into Dani’s hand. “We can...We can slow down if you like, or—”

She says it all quickly, somehow maddeningly in control and apparently completely unaware of the urgency building under dani’s skin.

Just as quick, Dani pulls her hand from Jamie’s jeans and kicks her trousers off completely. She lifts herself up and grabs the hem of her panties and tugs them down, too, until she is bare beneath a still-half-clothed Jamie. 

Jamie’s eyes widen at the sight of her and Dani takes that as an opportunity to start pushing the other woman’s pants down, too, and then her underwear. Tearing her eyes away, Jamie moves to kneel on the mattress and then struggles to help pull everything off, but then she manages and there’s just the light of the table lamp, but it’s enough for Dani to see all of her and her breath is caught because they’re here. Jamie is naked and on top of her and they’re really doing this.

Finally.

_Finally._

She curves her hand around Jamie’s breast again, running her thumb over her nipple and then craning her neck and ducking her head to pull it into her mouth. The groan Jamie looses rumbles against her mouth. She moves to the other one, reaching her hands around to flatten her palms against the small of Jamie’s back, pulling her down until they’re _pressed together._

“Poppins,” Jamie says when Dani pulls away, breathless and red-faced, eyes raking down Dani’s body. “Dani...You’re really beautiful. Anyone ever tell ya’ that?”

Dani flushes at the attention and hides it by leaning put to kiss her. “You should take a look at yourself sometime,” she whispers and pulls away.

Jamie is silent for a moment, biting her bottom lip and seemingly thinking something over. Finally, she says. “Would it be alright with you if I went down on ya’?”

A thrill shocks through Dani’s chest at this, running down her sternum and belly and settling hot between her thighs. “Oh my god,” she sighs, hardly able to articulate the words.

“That a yes?”

Unable to gather herself enough to give a better response, Dani just nods dumbly. Jamie grins at her and then ducks her head to kiss down Dani’s sternum, then breasts. Her ribcage, then stomach, then her hips. The cool tickle of her curly hair against Dani’s skin and her hot breath. Thumbs press into the soft flesh of her hips, and she can’t help but look down at the sight—that head of lovely dark hair settling between her thighs.

Not seconds later, a tongue flicks against the length of her and Dani drops her head back down on the pillow and grips the bedspread in her fists.

“Oh, God,” she whimpers as warm lips wrap around her clit. “Jamie.”

Jamie hums against her, making Dani gasp. Her hand flies down to rest at the back of the other woman’s head, fingers combing through her drying hair. One of the hands that Jamie has wrapped around her thighs comes up and finds Dani’s, lacing their fingers together and squeezing lightly, reassuringly.

“It’s us. You and me,” Dani breathes, which stands for so much more than what it says.

Because it also says: _You’re here._

It says: _You’re real._

It says: _It’s okay._

And it especially says : _please don’t ever let me go._

Right now, though, Dani is saying this:

Please. Yes. Don’t stop. Fuck me, Jamie, please.

Jamie pulls her mouth away for a moment when she says it, catching her breath, and it’s only a second of eye contact but Dani knows that she’s just heard everything that’s been said. Knows that Dani is there, on the cusp of falling over—desperate and gasping and _wanting it all_ ; just them and only them, Jamie and Dani, and Poppins and the Gardener and _you and me and you and us and—_

Two fingers enter her slickly and Dani’s back arches a little, hips stuttering upwards. Her head drops heavily on the pillow and then Jamie’s mouth is back, fevered and eager. Dani’s next inhale is sharp in her lungs and she combs some of Jamie’s hair away from her face so that she can see her—so their eyes can meet and electricity can jolt through her veins at the look she finds there.

She squeezes Jamie’s hand, rocking down as gently as she can manage in a silent appeal for her to keep going—more— _oh please_ —yes—

_Jamie, don’t stop._

When it happens—when she falls—Jamie catches her so easily that the impact doesn’t even register. Just the cool slide and slip into gentle waves, rocking over her, around her, through her. Her senses return when she feels gentle kisses on her forehead and temple, then her lips, and she opens her eyes to see green ones watching her quietly.

“Was that—?” Jamie begins, but Dani rolls her eyes.

“Like you even need to ask,” she says, still catching her breath, and Jamie laughs, looking a little proud. “Oh my god.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

A kiss to her forehead. “Good. I...I wanted this to be good for you. I like you so much.”

This time, Dani doesn’t hesitate: “I...really, really like you, too.”

Not: _I love you._

Not yet. But soon maybe. With time.

She can feel Jamie smiling against the skin of her cheek, and she can tell by her body language that she must think it’s over. That Dani was ready to receive, but not necessarily to give, and it’s the fact that she seems so perfectly content with this idea that makes Dani move so quickly.

“Dani, what—?” Jamie asks, a little panicked as Dani grips her and rolls her to her back so that she’s on top.

“Your turn,” Dani says simply, already kissing her neck and moving down to her breasts.

“If you don’t—”

Dani pulls her mouth away and fixes Jamie with a hard look. “Shut up,” she says and then she reaches down between Jamie’s legs and slides her fingers across her clit.

Jamie’s eyes flutter shut. “Happily so. _God_.”

That’s a good sign, Dani thinks, and so she keeps going.

She has the same pieces. The same parts. She knows what to do with them. Maybe it isn’t so different.

And, really, it isn’t at first. But then her fingers are actually inside of Jamie, being clutched tight by her slick warmth, and no—

It’s very different.

Being inside another woman like this—being inside _Jamie_ like this—is like nothing like she might have imagined. It makes her feel both powerful and powerless all at once, in some intoxicating medley of buzzing euphoria and ardent tenacity.

The way Jamie feels, the way she grips Dani’s wrist just to feel the movement of it between her legs—the sounds she makes and the way she gasps out curses and praises—how she shudders and digs her nails into Dani’s shoulders when she comes.

That’s all it takes for Dani to feel like she’s been doing this all her life.

Maybe she’s a quick learner. Or maybe there is something in Jamie that she already _knows._

It’s something. It’s everything.

And when it’s over and they’re curled together on the bed, their sweat cooling on their skin—Dani’s hair sticking up in the back from the friction of the pillow; Jamie’s dried mussed with eager fingers—all of their angles slide together to make something else.

Something round and complete and almost perfect.

As close as Dani thinks she will ever bother to get.

“Us,” Jamie whispers against Dani’s hair just as she’s falling asleep.

Dani burrows her nose into the crook of Jamie’s neck, feeling her heartbeat beneath her palm. “You and me,” she says back.

And—

.

Everything ends sometime:

There is something wrong with Flora, something terrible, and Henry won’t answer her calls or call her back.

Jamie kisses her goodnight in the hallway and an hour later, Dani is knocked unconscious in the attic. Peter and Rebecca are dead but not gone and they want the children, except Rebecca doesn’t take Flora even when Peter takes Miles. 

She unties her, saves her, and Dani pulls Flora downstairs and out of the house only for her breath to be stolen away by a cold, wet hand closing around her throat. Dragging her up the stairs. To the old wing. Dani’s vision fading. Darkness edging in on all sides of what she can see.

She thinks she’s going to die. Thinks _what a way for this to end_. Thinks of Jamie and _us_ and thinks of saying _I’m sorry, love, I’m so sorry._ But the ghost doesn’t want her. It wants Flora. It wants Flora and it takes her.

And then the sheer panic of the run to the lake, Flora in the arms of the pale, faceless ghost, and Dani says it before she can think of why.

Says those words that have only ever made her think of Jamie. Of _want_ and _belonging_ and _peace_. She says them and the thing is—

.

Something happens:

Jamie stands where she is planted, her arms outstretched as the ghostly figure holding Flora comes closer and closer to Dani and then...disappears into her.

Dani staggers. Falters. And, for a moment, Jamie thinks she might be—but _no_ —no, no, no. Not like this. Not _Dani._ Dani wouldn’t just _leave_ her like that—Dani would _never_.

For a moment, she is filled with the wrath of a woman gone feral at the thought of losing the person she loves. But that isn’t how it ends.

It ends with the air _vibrating_ and Dani stumbling again, Flora in her arms and breathes and Jamie rushes forward and—

Oh. It’s okay, love.

_I’m here._

It ends with Jamie’s arms around Dani and Flora both, holding her tight, holding her tight enough for it to say _stay with me love, please just stay_ _._

It ends with Dani’s forehead pressed against her own with eyes like _you’re here you’re real you’re really really here._

It ends with Owen saving Henry and Hannah gone and Miles wrapping his sister in a tight hug. 

With Dani’s pained and relieved gaze at these children that are not hers in the same way that they are and Jamie tugging her in, pulling her close. Cupping her jaw and tracing the lines of Dani’s lips with her thumbs, saying, “You’re here.”

With Dani falling into her arms, mouth pressed into the hollow of Jamie’s neck, holding her back just as tightly.

With, “It’s us.”

It ends with the two of them and it is still them.

It will always be them—only ever you _and me and us._

And, despite everything, Dani couldn’t possibly want for more.

...

**Author's Note:**

> title from Richard Siken’s “Scheherazade.” 
> 
> i’ve never done prompts before, but i can’t stop thinking about these guys. if you have any, hit me up on [tumblr](https://andawaywego.tumblr.com/).
> 
> my goal is always to make people yell. if i succeeded, let me know. 
> 
> insert kissy emoji.


End file.
